Lifetime accounts for World of Warcraft is no small number

According to stats released by Blizzard, World of
Warcraft has notched up 100 million
lifetime player accounts, which have resulted in 500 million
characters being created in Azeroth.

If you take the account number to represent unique individuals
that would put the WoW account holder database at roughly
the population of the Philippines. However, it does include things
like trial accounts and doesn't specify how many of the 100 million
are currently active (the last official figures put active
subscribers at 7.6 million).

Of the 500 million characters created, the population skews ever
so slightly towards the Alliance with 52 percent compared to 47
percent identifying as Horde and one percent neutral (as Zapp
Brannigan suggests, perhaps they were just born with a heart full
of neutrality).

Other stats released by Blizzard include the fact that in-game
text amounts to around six illion words or twelve copies of
Lord of the Rings, that the squirrel is the most common
pet and that the sound effects and music contained in the world
would run to 3,900 minutes if played one after another.

World of Warcraft's subscriber base has been
experiencing a slow decline -- somewhat inevitable as the game ages
and newer propositions come along, especially those with a
free-to-play model instead of WoW's monthly subscription.
However, Blizzard's MMO is far from dead and its current active
subscriber base is higher than the population of Bulgaria.

November this year will mark the game's ten year anniversary so
it will be interesting to see how Blizzard chooses to mark the
milestone for one of its best-known and popular products.